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The Fear is Only in Your Thinkin’

Last night, very late, I opened my email to find the following subject line from a dear sister-friend:

“Was just told to tell you this.”

Intrigued, I read the single sentence in the body of the email . . . The way you hold all beings in such motherly compassion heals them in deep, deep ways; ways that not even you are able to comprehend yet.

I sat there at the screen for several minutes, reading, re-reading, very still in my chair, not fully taking in what I was reading, though realizing it was important. Given my knowledge of my friend’s spiritual gifts, I had no doubt that the words were, shall I say, “Authentic,” yet I seemed unable to take in the full import of what I now know was a necessary gift, and so went to bed, but couldn’t fall asleep. And no, it wasn’t because of the small amount of chocolate I’d had at noon; I didn’t consider it could have been because of the email, though.

My friend wrote to me this morning to say, “When it “hit,” and it did hit–the message, the words to share–I got hot behind my eyes and they teared up. It was a powerful moment.” Then she asked if I had any idea why she had been asked to tell me this. Not knowing, when I wrote back this is what I learned:

You may not know that I so often feel that my life and work exist in a sort of vacuum, i.e., people don’t know about me; depression and worry, constant companions; still not supporting myself; not doing/offering the shiny things that folks these days gravitate to (and seem to have money to pay for), etc. My guess is that it was given to you for me so that I could keep going, know that there is importance and meaning in what I offer – and that I’m good enough. And, I guess, to know I’ll be taken care of to some degree.

It was in answering my friend that I was finally able to take in the importance of the message. I even wrote it in calligraphy and placed it where I’ll see it when I’m at my computer (which I am way too much). It’s time now to say something to the Giver, something that’s in my heart . . .

Spirit Holy, I am humbled by your effort to get a message to me. This short, packed sentence calls me to more fully comprehend and claim the significance of what I do – what You do through me. I will not forget this. And when I do forget, which I’m sure I will (things like this vanish, you know), I will read those precious words again and re-claim my ride on this carousel called life; I will get back on the pony and do my part.

As the last keystroke is made in writing the above words, I hear voices from the television (PBS’s Lark Rise to Candleford is on in the background). Vicar Marley tells Thomas, the postman, “For me, faith is an adventure. It vanishes and I must find it again, daily.” Thomas answers, saying, “Faith, sir, is a rock. It is a mast; it is a tower.” I start to watch the show more closely. Near the end of the episode (Season 4, ep.3), and as a result of what’s come between, Thomas the postman begins to lose his mast, his tower. “What if there is no Holy Spirit??? The Bible, the church, hundreds of years of worship; every prayer that I have ever uttered – what if it’s all an illusion, a folly???” And a moment later, “What if my whole life has been wrong?”

The scene shifts to the village’s matriarch, Queenie, who speaks to a woman whose morals came into question earlier in the episode because of her relationship with the vicar. “The fear is in your mind; the fear is only in your thinkin’, and you can’t cure your thinkin’ by your thinkin’. The only cure for your thinkin’ is by your livin’.”

How oddly timed this episode relative to this writing; I’d only tuned in for company, yet suddenly laid out before me in Lark Rise to Candleford was the whole of my life’s journey – certainty of doubt, uncertainty of faith, odd mixtures and reversals of both, and all of it on the day after what was certainly the Spirit Holy’s message to me. What an invitation to come back ’round to my livin’. What an adventure to say “yes” to!